


Dropping Stitches

by shadoedseptmbr



Series: Tales from the Shelterverse [8]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orana settles into the estate after Hawke hires her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dropping Stitches

Orana had heard the mistresses conferring the morning after she’d hesitantly entered the estate, still padding unsure about the vast stone flagged kitchen.

 

“A _slave_ , Aeryn?”

 

“Not our slave, Mother.  I’m paying her a decent wage.”

 

“But why…”

 

“Well, what did you want me to do?  Leave her to wander around till slavers picked her up again or she fell off a cliff or something ate her?  She’s not very well fed, but there are a few desperate creatures on the mountain.  Especially if she’d already fallen off a cliff and tenderized herself.”

 

“Aeryn!”

 

“My apologies, Mother.”

 

A sigh and then, “I’m just not sure why she’s your responsibility.”

 

“Considering her father was killed because her owner was afraid of me and Fenris…and then got proved correct in that fear?  Yes, she’s my responsibility.”  A pause.  “What do you think I should do with her?”

 

“Let me handle it.  Poor thing.”

 

And so Mistress Leandra had, while Mistress Hawke treated her kindly, and continued to do…whatever it was that she did that involved so many knives and so little sleep.  Orana had been found clothes, soft and practical and even flattering.  She’d been shown a room and told it was her own.  Shown the kitchen and asked a few questions that had seemed to satisfy Mistress that Orana was a good cook.  Shown the public rooms and the private, the bedrooms last of all; Mistress Leandra’s in lovely shades of lavender and blue, Mistress Hawke’s in dark reds and purple, and the three guest rooms, one of which was as lushly appointed as the ladies’ in dusky rose and gold.  Serah Bodahn had shown her the broom cupboard and given her a small list of chores that included scrubbing the entrance hall, but the first time she went to take care of it, early on the second day, she’d found the younger Mistress just finishing.

 

“Sorry, Orana.  Didn’t mean to snag your chore.  Couldn’t sleep, figured I’d be productive.” Hawke had lithely stood and hauled a bucket of dirty water up.  “C’mon.  I set up dough for sweet rolls earlier.”

 

And then Orana stood in the kitchen and for the first time made up the sweet rolls that turned out to be a favorite among Hawke’s companions, with nuts and honey and a bit of orange peel under her mistress’ careful guidance.

 

Nearly a week had gone by now and she’d finally been coaxed from the kitchen to join them all in the estate study.  On an overstuffed deep blue velvet cushion on the ornately woven rug Leandra had placed there only weeks before, Orana sat stiffly, waiting to be called to duty.  To pour a cup or fetch something.  But the people here…these so strange people with their little purses of coin every week and their gentle respect and their quiet, careful movements and thank yous and pleases… seemed to have a routine, all their needs met and their little items close to hand.

 

The slight elf watched with wide eyes as the household settled in for the evening with a cup of tea in her cold, thin hands.  Mistress Leandra lounged in elegant dishabille on the long chaise, her skirts tucked in under long legs and satin slippers, sipping her after dinner cup.  There was a leather bound book next to her, with a bit of worked silk marking a place, but she hadn’t opened it yet.

 

The dwarven servants, Serah Bodahn and simple Sandal…or was he only strange and not simple, Orana hadn’t decided yet…joined the ladies of the house.  Bodahn had a low chair, just suited to his height, covered in leather and tapestry, with another embroidered cushion, this one in blue and gold harlequin, for his feet.  He had a small glass of some golden liqueur he’d warmed in a crystal flask near the fire, sending a wave of anise and moss towards Orana before he’d settled.  Sandal was playing with a stack of runestones on the floor beside him before his amicable face scrunched and he started chipping at one with a pick he’d taken from the finely worked leather vest he wore.

 

“Mind the carpet, boy.” Bodahn reminded in a musical voice over the rim of his round glass, and pushed a bit of leather towards the industrious young dwarf with a stockinged toe, having left his boots by the door before he padded across Mistress Leandra’s beautiful red and cream carpets.

“Okay.” Sandal tugged the leather into place under his work, absently.

 

Mistress Hawke; quietest, still and watchful and recently returned limping from some latest adventure was curled into an armchair covered by a woven blanket and she swallowed down her tea, to which she’d added some sort of healing potion, grimaced and pulled out the seagrass basket that had sat unobtrusively beside her seat.  She fished through it before finding what she was looking for.  Orana used her cup to block her face as she watched her Mistress…a wealthy woman by local means, though she didn’t seem to aspire to the opulence of Orana’s former mistress…start to tie knots in string?  With sharp pointed sticks.  Orana closed her dropped open mouth and hoped she hadn’t made a sound.

 

It was…an exercise, perhaps?  Orana was fairly sure that her new lady was a thief of some sort.  Perhaps it kept her elegant little (well, for a human, anyway) hands nimble.  But then Mistress Leandra turned to the table beside her seat and pulled out a similar stretch of string and stick from an embroidered round box sitting next to her on the delicate table.  Orana took another sip of tea to cover her curiosity.  It was good tea, not the old dregs or the weeds gathered from beside the road and rich with milk and sugar.

 

Orana had made the whole dinner and then eaten the same food from the same table and the same plates.

 

Mistress Leandra didn’t invite her to eat luncheon with her, if she had company, but if she did not the woman always came to the table in the kitchen to eat with the dwarves.  Mistress Hawke almost always ate in the kitchen, if she was at home.

 

Orana glanced up feeling a watching weight, expecting to be hustled into work.  Mistress Leandra had soft, pretty blue eyes.  Mistress Hawke, though, had the eyes of something with teeth.  But the human was smiling, a little, and her eyes were almost soft, too.  She’d caught Orana watching her hands.

 

“What’s the matter, Orana?  Don’t you knit?”

 

Orana shook her head.

 

“Who made your stockings, then?”

 

“Ladies don’t knit, Aeryn.  I’ve told you that.”

 

“Ladies do very well knit, Mother, I’m watching one do so now.”

 

Leandra nodded with a wry smile as she looped the yarn around a long finger, “Yes, well, note that I don’t do so in fine company.”

 

“Tsk, you’ll hurt Bodahn and Orana’s feelings!  Well, if Bodahn hadn’t decided to take his nap.”  Sandal giggled as Bodahn snored away.  Hawke offered to refill their cups, before topping her own off.

 

“Mistress…my old mistress, I mean…had lovely silk stockings made by a blind elven weaver.”  Orana murmured under their chatter thinking of the ones, shredded and ruined she’d often had to pick up and wash in water that would turn rusty and take back as unfit for the coin and was surprised to find that the humans had heard her.  Orana learned early how to speak so as not to be heard, but these people...they hear as much as they see.

 

“They do sound like something quite fine.”  Leandra said gently.

 

Hawke wrinkled her nose, just a little after she set her cup aside.  “Ah, well.  Silk is beautiful, but it doesn’t block the wind.  Winter is cold here and awfully damp on the water…even if only for a couple of months.”  Orana nodded, a little mystified at her mistress’ wistful expression.  Cold was…she’d been cold.  Mistress had once used ice bindings to punish for a spilled cup of wine.  It hadn’t been something Orana thought she would miss, at all.

 

Shaking out the length of dark brown knit to show Orana, Hawke explained, “These are for our friend, Anders. You’ve met him, he was with us when we found you.  Tall, blondish-ginger?”  Orana nodded.  He was a mage, too…but something else that she hadn’t quite gotten a hold of and had no intention of trying.  Mages were best left to themselves if one could manage.  She might just manage it now, tucked away in this estate, away from the blustering of the world outside.  “The damp will get him if I don’t help out, down there in Darktown.  He can’t knit, either.”  As if it was a failing.

 

“They are very…pretty?”

 

“They are not.” Hawke retorted with a smirk.  “I’ve made him pretty ones; all cables and stripes and he just puts holes in them all the same or gives the bloody things away, so this winter he gets plain and serviceable.”

 

“And now you know my pain.”  Leandra teased with a smile only to breathe in sharply when she glanced down at the work in her hand, her mouth going slack as if she’d accidently said a foul word and expected to be slapped for it  Just for a moment, Orana thought she saw tears before the older woman shook out her work to eye it critically and stretch the stitches out to show a pattern.  The stockings on her needles were pale, fine with a stripe of lace going up the back of the calf.  Nearly finished, but too long for Mistress Hawke by three or so inches if Orana gauged the height right.  Too pretty and delicate, as well, she thought.  Mistress Hawke wore lovely soft stockings, judging by what she’d hung out to dry the other morning, but plain and simple.  

 

Perhaps they were for Lady Amell, herself?  Though Mistress seemed to prefer darker colors, Orana mused, trying to fit together the missing piece that would explain...so many things.

 

“Finish your tea, dear.”  Orana took a hasty sip of her cup going cold, thinking that the chiding meant for her not to waste the luxury but, no, Mistress was looking at her daughter; gone suddenly still. Eyes like glass staring into the fire, one of the slender bone needles yanked carelessly from its stitches and gripped too tightly in a white knuckled hand.

 

Startled, the younger woman refocused her gaze on her mother’s face as if she was waiting to see her mother and not...whatever she’d seen in the fire and laid the needle aside before she took her cup back up.  “Yes, ma’am.”  Her eyes shut briefly over the rim as she breathed in steam.  

 

In the hush that followed, Orana felt lopsided; prickly and chilled, as if she might be sliding down on a polished floor, like she was kneeling on wet marble while wild magic lashed over her head.   

 

A pocket of resin popped, the showering sparks making Sandal laugh.   Bodahn roused himself, checking on Sandal and then his employers, eyes narrowing just a touch at the residue of whatever awful thing that had just happened that Orana couldn’t get a grasp on.  “Dear me, the log basket is empty.  I do apologize, Lady Amell.  Shall I get more wood?”

 

“Aeryn?”

 

“Ah...not on my account, Bodahn, thanks.  I...I meant to meet up with Isabela, fairly soon.”  She unfolded herself from the armchair and bounced a little on her toes, bare and curled against the carpet.

 

“Are you sure?”  Concern in the motherly voice that made Orana ache a little, remembering Father’s little pat every morning before she’d gone in with Mistress’ breakfast tray.

 

“Yeah, good as new.  Anders has a way with a tonic.”  Hawke hesitated at her mother’s shoulder and then dropped a kiss on the older woman’s iron grey hair. “Don’t wait up.  ‘Night, all.”  She leaned over and hooked the pullstraps on her boots around one finger as she exited the door, feet silent even when they met cold stone.

 

They all watched her leave, Leandra’s eyes lingering on the absence of Hawke’s shadow. Orana switched her eyes to her mistress, waiting for a cue, but it was Bodahn who broke the silence, again.  Perhaps that was his role in the small household.  

 

“My lady?”

 

Finally, Leandra shook her head.  “No, Bodahn.  I think I’ll go upstairs to write some letters, instead.  I’ll...finish these later.  There’s no rush, after all.  I don’t even know that I’ll be able to send them, nameday or no.”   

 

She folded it neatly around the needles and set the bundle back in the workbox before murmuring good night and slipping out of the door, no less graceful than her daughter, leaving the servants of the house to finish their tea in silence.  

 

In the fireplace, the last log collapsed, sending more sparks up the chimney and Orana watched as one ember nearly escaped the firebox on a draft; flaring briefly only to turn ashen and black when it landed on the hearthstones.  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


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